The Amazon HQ2 Victory Park proposal includes the North End Apartments and includes multiple landowners Hillwood being one of them. We need to simply look at that article from the Dallas Morning News with the map of the Victory proposal. The article had each landowner listed on the map since the Victory Proposal is a large partnership proposal. Keep in mind being so many landowners involved hurts that proposal cause even with agreements you can have infighting resulting in slowdowns in the larger project getting built.

tamtagon wrote:I don't know who owns that gold mine, but they need to cash out so the museum can have a lawn.

Honestly, if Perot wanted a lawn they would have one. They own a huge lot next to the museum. That lot is to be the next part of the museum. But it's massive enough to fit another museum, a garage and a park.

Either Perot is cheap or they want the city to provide the green space and parking.

I bet they want to continue to use the city Parking (under woodall) for free and have the city build the green space (KWP extension)... All at the city's expense of course.

To be fair we would be better off if the city used the parking under woodall as a massive North Texas Skate Park and if possible some greenery near the periphery of frog alley. This would help connect West End/CBD and VP.

tamtagon wrote:I understand Perot's desire to have a dedicated path from the super popular park to the museum, but that elevated walkway is just about as silly as the elevated parking garage.

Exactly right. We already have a "dedicated path". It's called sidewalks. We have spent/are spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to create an urban environment in downtown and uptown Dallas. These silly elevated walkways would take us in exactly the wrong direction.

tamtagon wrote:I understand Perot's desire to have a dedicated path from the super popular park to the museum, but that elevated walkway is just about as silly as the elevated parking garage.

Exactly right. We already have a "dedicated path". It's called sidewalks. We have spent/are spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to create an urban environment in downtown and uptown Dallas. These silly elevated walkways would take us in exactly the wrong direction.

No kidding... There is room for improvement along that sidewalk, but the sidewalk itself works just fine. Setting the precedent that folks should be able to go from one to the other without pressing a crosswalk button is ridiculous, and will result in unrealistic expectations elsewhere.

I get that they want to pretend that elevated walkway would be our High-line but that was a repurposed elevated railway through the dense walkable cityscape of New York. This would be a purpose-built highway ramp/overpass aka elevated trail. The beauty of the High Line is that it was recycled infrastructure turned into public space. Our High Line is the Katy Trail. Sit down and work with the city and anyone charged with access road changes and fix the damn sidewalk. Create useable public space at street intersections where there is none.

I think it would be great if the museum's elevated walkway to Klyde Warren Park is a marvel of engineering and science, turning the 5 minute walk into a stroll through a nature & science project, but the city's help should be limited to getting through the red-tape.

Big plans are in the works for Klyde Warren 2.0: a new fountain on the east end, expansion of the children’s park on the west end and redesigning the area around Olive Street.

The park needs about $15 million in private donations to pull off all of that, says retired banker Jody Grant, the man behind the 5.2-acre freeway-deck park and chairman of the Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation, the nonprofit that runs it.

Most people don’t realize the park doesn’t receive operating funds from the city.

That means the foundation must bring in about $5.5 million this year to manage, run it and keep it looking pristine, says Jody Grant, the 79-year-old chairman emeritus of Texas Capital Bank.

“We look at it as total cash out vs. total cash in,” he says. “We’ve been closing the gap, but when you look at it that way, we’ve been in a deficit ever since the park opened.”

The shortfall this year will be about $250,000 before allocating money for the park’s next phase.

“We desperately need somebody who has the tools that Kit brings,” says Grant. “There is a simple axiom here: We can deliver services that far exceed what we do today. Money is the only thing that stands between us and having activities in the park that begin at 6 a.m. and last all day, every day.”

tamtagon wrote:I think it would be great if the museum's elevated walkway to Klyde Warren Park is a marvel of engineering and science, turning the 5 minute walk into a stroll through a nature & science project, but the city's help should be limited to getting through the red-tape.

According to Fox 4 News, they are planning to annocuce the details of the new expansion in a few weeks. It still includes expanding KWP westward, putting in the fountain on Pearl St, and expanding the children’s park. I can’t wait to see what the final design is.

I'm glad they decided on a visitors center instead of another restaurant. Why cannibalize Savor and add to the already saturated market here? Stampede 66 just closed and there are more restaurants coming to 1900 Pearl and Park District.

lakewoodhobo wrote:I'm glad they decided on a visitors center instead of another restaurant. Why cannibalize Savor and add to the already saturated market here? Stampede 66 just closed and there are more restaurants coming to 1900 Pearl and Park District.

Absolutely! Moving the visitors center to KWP is a HUGE deal. It'll do wonders to help turn the page on what people envision Dallas to be. Less JFK, and more TECH! I love it.

As for the garage... What is it, 70-90 spaces? Wasteful, sure... but not as bad as it could be. I'll get over it.

That said, the Akard extension looks almost like an afterthought. ??? It's like they needed to check a box that said 'green space', and said, 'here, this will work'. ? It looks a bit underwhelming.

Glad they ditched the skybridges... but there is still one little one here. Hmm...

Surely that merry go round is just a cut and past place holder until they figure out what to do there. It looks ridiculous. I heard the sky bridge connecting the Perot all the way to the Arts District would be a phase 3 project at a later date.

Hannibal Lecter wrote:Does anyone actually visit a city visitor center? I mean this as an honest question. I can't recall any time that I ever have.

I remember when first relocating to Dallas, it was suggested that I go to the visitor center (don't remember by who). I was greeted by 60+ lady who instructed me to check out Thanksgiving Square and Reunion tower, before giving me some flyers of some sort. After seeing Thanksgiving Square, I opted against going to the tower, and disposed of all the flyers. It was just archaic. But that doesn't mean it has to be.I actually feel embarrassed that some people's first impressions are from that place. You would be surprised how many people are here on business for the first time and don't know where to start. I know 'locals' who know nothing about Dallas proper, and take visitors to the same places I just mentioned. smh

Cbdallas wrote:Surely that merry go round is just a cut and past place holder until they figure out what to do there. It looks ridiculous. I heard the sky bridge connecting the Perot all the way to the Arts District would be a phase 3 project at a later date.

Separated from the main park by two busy streets I just don't see that block getting any use at all. Maybe if they dedicated it to specific use(s) like a larger dog park. Hell, imagine the infinity swimming pool they could put there!

From what I can tell they are focused on getting the deck built and the lawn will basically be for event programming. If you read the captions on the renderings in the article it says the Merry-go-round is optional based on available funding. They obviously aren't sure how much money they will be able to raise for finish out of that final deck but they want it built so they can program it and add additional features later. Keeping in mind to build the expansion it will cause a traffic disturbance so they want the deck now since they can't expect the state to keep shutting down Woodall Rogers everytime they decide to add a new section of deck park. I think the idea is to get the most amount of deck for the money now and later they can design a function like in a 3rd phase. I am not saying I agree with it but you can clearly see that Merry-go-round section is not as designed as the rest of the addition.

As far as the fountain and expansion of the children's area go I think those are still happening. In the new video, you can clearly see the expanded children's area where the gardens used to be. I assume the fountain is happening as well just that they are focusing on showing off the biggest addition.

Personally, I am against the whole expansion. It doesn't seem as well thought out and seems vastly disconnected from the overall flow of the park. Notice how they still try to bury the fact they are building a parking garage floating over the freeway. They try to spend most of the fluff piece trying to sell us on this amazing visitor center and just barely mention, oh yeah there is a parking garage too...

Nice article and some good points. Have to ask the question, why on earth would the city waste money on a visitor center? People still use those things? Don't most people just ask their phones for information now? That seems very....old world.

Tnexster wrote:Nice article and some good points. Have to ask the question, why on earth would the city waste money on a visitor center? People still use those things? Don't most people just ask their phones for information now? That seems very....old world.

Because they need the visitor center to the mask the fact that they are wasting tax dollars on a garage for a non profit.

Instead of expanding the park in a way that would be a genuine attraction to visitors (and residents!), the city would instead turn that space over to pure boosterism.

More to the point, there's almost no park in this park—the additional space there would be is a cut off from the rest of the park by the new structure.

The Nasher Sculpture Center would do well to place an entrance facing Klyde Warren, instead of turning its back with a series of blank walls. And if the park is to do more to funnel pedestrians to the Perot, that museum should likewise figure out a more friendly way to welcome them than with a long, blank staircase.

I wish they would just come out and be honest about this project, and stop trying to pretend it will be an 'expansion' of the park. This is a separate facility all together that just happens to be right next to the park.

I'm not exactly for this 'expansion', but I understand that there is opportunity for some revenue here, and it makes sense to capitalize on it. It's not like this land would be used for much else, and it'll also block the view of the highway just a little bit more.

It seems that a much better option would be to extend the park EASTWARD a few hundred feet, and then work to integrate it with the Arts District by re configuring the Annette Strauss Square as a pass through to the core of the Arts District. That square, while beautiful, is hardly used and walled off like an internment camp from Red Dawn. I doubt the Winspear has any interest in something like that, but it would do wonders for the Arts District to have more integration with the park as opposed to living like two awkward neighbors who never talk to each other.

muncien wrote:It seems that a much better option would be to extend the park EASTWARD a few hundred feet, and then work to integrate it with the Arts District by re configuring the Annette Strauss Square as a pass through to the core of the Arts District. That square, while beautiful, is hardly used and walled off like an internment camp from Red Dawn. I doubt the Winspear has any interest in something like that, but it would do wonders for the Arts District to have more integration with the park as opposed to living like two awkward neighbors who never talk to each other.

Something as simple as live music there on the weekends would draw people from KWP to the Annette Strauss and into the Arts District itself.

muncien wrote:It seems that a much better option would be to extend the park EASTWARD a few hundred feet, and then work to integrate it with the Arts District by re configuring the Annette Strauss Square as a pass through to the core of the Arts District. That square, while beautiful, is hardly used and walled off like an internment camp from Red Dawn. I doubt the Winspear has any interest in something like that, but it would do wonders for the Arts District to have more integration with the park as opposed to living like two awkward neighbors who never talk to each other.

Much better than going west, IMO. It would have helped if there hadn't been that new unnecessary 1900 Pearl building on the corner by the Meyerson and Artist Square.